Language delay/ASD/Something else? Please help!

I do not post frequently but I do read the daily threads on here and am hoping some of you will be able to give me some input about my concerns.

My daughter just started Early Intervention, but the speech therapist will not commit to whether there is anything wrong or not. I am both worried and confused with all the information online. I live in a third world country so I do not have access to many of the resources you may have in the West.

My daughter is a happy, healthy child, but I grew concerned because of these reasons:

Â·She rarely responds to her name (maybe one time out of ten). BUT she will respond to voice, for example if my husband comes home from work and calls her. Or if I say â€œAlysha do you want chickenâ€, she will come.

Â·She is often absorbed in whatever she is doing and will not pay any attention to anyone other than family. Even if someone new walks into the house she will not turn and look at them, or acknowledge their presence in any way. BUT she is extremely loving with us, always wanting to cuddle etc.

Â·At 9 months she started saying a few words â€“ Mom, Dad, Nana (big brother), Appa (Grandpa) and Bowwow for Dog. Close to a year, she stopped. Now she says Mom and Dad very infrequently (maybe once or twice a week). She says few other words â€“ numbers up to ten, bye-bye, no and and chikka for chicken. She can say duck, goose, bear and cat looking at the pictures in the book.

Â·The only instructions she follows are â€˜Get your shoesâ€™ and â€˜Get your waterâ€™ or â€˜Get (name of book)â€™ â€“ she identifies the book correctly.

Â·Physically, she is very active and achieved all her milestones â€“ walking, running, climbing up and down stairs â€“ early. She can also do stuff like stack blocks, colour and put shapes in the shape sorter.

Please tell me if any of you have experienced this, and what it could be, what more I could do? We just started EI and I do activities with her at home.

Please have her ears checked. I've heard of many children beginning speech early and then somehow it just stops. It can be due to fluid in the ear, my husband had this when he was a baby and they ended up putting tubes in his ears. He was a very smart baby but the hearing was equal to trying to hear underwater. It's possible that she's more responsive to your husband if he has a lower voice (hearing the low vibrations). Please keep us informed on what you find out.

I agree about getting her ears checked. My son had fluid in his ears and was appech delayed but still responded to certain ambient noises. They hear somethings better than others but words are muffled.
Also my son will not respond to people coming etc if he is engrossed in play with toys. Or to his name either. But in other contexts he is social and responsive. Think about how she is during meals or in the park.

I don't know what state you live in but many or most seem to have free early intervention services. I just had the Pennsylvania people come out and evaluate my little dude (who needs speech therapy). It is free to all, not income-based.

They said I should get his ears checked by a pediatric audiologist at the children's hospital. They said the local people who don't specialize in kids don't do a good job with toddlers.

Hang in there, Mama. I agree with the PPs about getting her ears checked. I have heard about therapists not wanting to diagnose too early because they don't want to freak the parents out and at this age, sometimes it is just too early to tell with something like ASD.